


we have existed

by erlkoenig



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: But mostly fluff, Fluff, M/M, and drinking, miscommunications, oh my!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 23:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19365778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erlkoenig/pseuds/erlkoenig
Summary: “I doubt very much that you came here just to discuss poetry.”“You’re right,” Crowley says, sitting lazily in the other chair, an ancient, moth-bitten thing that might have been a soft, luxurious piece of furniture once upon a time before it found itself crammed in the angel’s shop. “I didn’t, but Catullus.” He takes another drink. “I’m surprised that I’m surprised by it.”





	we have existed

**Author's Note:**

> It's been seven years since I wrote a Good Omens fic, and my very first one was inspired by TS Eliot, it seems fitting that falling back into the fandom should come with Eliot as well. Apologies to Walt Whitman and TS Eliot for dragging them into this. And to Robert Frost, I suppose. No apologies to Catullus, who was the inspiration behind this thing.

 

Maudlin.

Crowley catches himself before he can let the door to the bentley slam, shuts it with a care reserved for fragile things, rather than tons of rubber and steel that carried him from London to Tadfield, burning. Behind his dark glasses, he looks it over again, as if he expects it to disappear at any moment.  _ Maudlin _ , and it’s not a good look for a demon, though who is still keeping score anymore?

If he lingers for just a moment, well, he’s allowed himself some sentiment towards the bentley before, and it’s not a hesitation before making his way up the step to the bookstore door. 

There was so much fire that day.

He shoves his thumbs into his pockets and turns towards the shop. The shades are pulled, the little sign flipped to  _ closed _ , but that never stopped him before. A gesture, and the lock turns, a step and — not a hesitation, not a breath — and the little bell jingles. 

“We’re closed!” 

“You’re always closed.” The lock turns again, and he follows the sound of shuffling papers, where that voice had been, meets him in the middle. “I saw the sign but seems I can’t read.”

Aziraphale scowls, but there’s a touch of fondness to it that gives him away. “I don’t believe locked doors require any literacy.”

“Wasn’t locked when I tried the handle.” He shrugs with it, and there’s another fond sort of gesture, a quick roll of eyes that tells him a good bottle of wine is a moment away. 

Maudlin. There’s nothing to cure the — well, not a  _ soul _ , and hardly a  _ spirit _ , so he blames it on the body and doesn’t think about it again. Nothing for it but proving bothersome to the angel. It shakes off the slump, the smell of dust and yellowing pages, worn leather and hints of cold cocoa. There’s a part of him that is almost grateful, as much as he can feel such a thing, that there is no lingering smoke, no smell of burning. 

He flicks his tongue against the back of his teeth and saunters after Aziraphale, lets the thought drift away like a bit of ash in the breeze.

The office is the same as it ever was, though the angel’s computer looks a bit — a  _ lot —  _ newer. Another little touch, like the extra shelves lined with children’s book and the dedicated science fiction section that is much larger than it was before the fire. Aziraphale’s desk is a thing of tidy chaos, papers sorted and stacked in a way that makes sense to only him. There’s a half finished mug of what might have indeed been cocoa next to white gloves, a stack of books with bits of receipts tucked between pages marking places that he might return to enjoy again and again. 

Crowley picks up one of them, leafs through it idly while Aziraphale busies himself with the corkscrew. 

“Catullus?” He asks, looking at the angel over the rim of his sunglasses, a smirk playing at his mouth. “Really angel?”

Aziraphale scowls, pulls back his hand and the glass of wine he almost offered, “Some of us have an appreciation for poetry, Crowley.”

“ _ Pēdīcābō ego vōs et irrumābō, _ ” Crowley grins, “I appreciate poetry too.”

The scowl deepens, the glasses precarious on the edge of the desk as Aziraphale reaches for the book, held just up out of his reach. “Of course you would know Carmen 16, Crowley. Give that here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know well what I mean by it. Book, now, or I will drink both of these in front of you.”

“Your manners wouldn’t allow that.” Crowley says to the threat, but he holds the book out all the same. There’s a slim volume of Eliot on the stack and he considers it for just a moment. “Now, we had a deal?” There’s a glass of red in his hand, some smooth, young malbec that isn’t half bad. He takes another drink. “Which of his is your favorite?”

“Whom?” Aziraphale sits at his desk, feathers clearly ruffled and if the angel allowed himself such an indulgence sober, Crowley thinks he might be blushing. 

“Catullus of course. Which one is your favorite?”

“I doubt very much that you came here just to discuss poetry.”

“You’re right,” Crowley says, sitting lazily in the other chair, an ancient, moth-bitten thing that might have been a soft, luxurious piece of furniture once upon a time before it found itself crammed in the angel’s shop. “I didn’t, but  _ Catullus _ .” He takes another drink. “I’m surprised that I’m surprised by it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve always been a bit of a hedonist, angel. Wine, desserts, your little silver snuffboxes, the  _ gavotte _ ,” he lingers on the word, ticks off each indulgence on his long fingers and watches that scowl never leave Aziraphale’s face, even through the wine. “Wilde. I should have known you would read Catullus, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised now if you told me you had a first edition scrap of his.” Another drink, “Probably signed.”

“You’re insufferable.” There is a touch of regret behind the barb — no first editions signed  _ to my angel _ , then.

“On the contrary, you suffer me quite often and you enjoy it too.”

Aziraphale refills his own glass, pointedly. Sets the bottle down and takes a sip, huffs a sigh and reaches for Crowley’s glass as well. 

"See?”

“Why are you here?”

“After all we’ve been through, together,” Crowley drawls, pouts in the angel’s direction and, oh yes, it’s working. Aziraphale’s scowl softens. “Can I not come by and see my friend? And don’t try that whole  _ we’re not friendssss _ bit again, I know better.” 

“I don’t sound like that.”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

Aziraphale replaces Catullus on the stack with Eliot and Dickenson and Pound. “Of course you’re welcome here any time, but you rarely come by without an ulterior motive.”

“Now that’s hurtful. And it’s not the question. What was your opinion on Frost again? I think we both agreed that he was a stuffy, overblown prat. Whitman though,” Crowley snaps his fingers, “I suffered through one of his readings with you that one time.”

“Song of Myself,” Aziraphale sighs, wistful in the memory of it. “ _ Stop this day and night with me, and you will posses the origins of all poems.” _

“Yes, yes that one.” Crowley interrupts. Once had been enough for him, and he drains half his glass. “Which brings me back to Catullus—“

“ _ How _ does that bring you back to Catullus?”

“Poetry.” Crowley stands and snatched up the bottle, tops himself off and shakes the bottle. “We’re going to need another one or four of these, angel.”

Aziraphale mutters something that sounds suspiciously like  _ well you know where they’re kept, Crowley _ , but sets his own empty glass down and makes for the wine cabinet. Crowley counts to five before flipping Catullus open again, thumb pressed to the scrap of receipt from the Ritz to hold its place. 

_ Ōdi et amō.  _

He feels, rather than hears Aziraphale returning. Closes the book quickly and he’s lounging in the chair again when Aziraphale steps back in the office holding two more bottles of the malbec. 

"So, Catullus.”

“You’re not going to let this go.” The cork disappears from one of the new bottles. 

“Should I?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Why are you avoiding the question?”

“Because,” Aziraphale gestures with the mostly empty wine bottle, sloshing it about inside. Considers it a moment and then pulls a drunk straight from the bottle, “it’ll become another one of those things you do, another little comment you needle me with.”

“I don’t  _ needle. _ ”

“You do.” 

Crowley frowns down at his full glass. He hadn’t  _ meant  _ to start an argument.  _ Needle _ . He drains the whole thing and holds it out again, nearly lets it slip out of his hand and  _ that _ would certainly cause a row and a half. It’s tempting, and he snorts to himself at the thought, it would at least change the topic without him having to concede defeat. 

“Catullus 51.” 

Crowley looks up, quirks an eyebrow. “Not 85?”

“So you  _ were _ snooping while I was gone.”

He was caught. He shrugs. “Smite me then. Why 51, and why 85 for that matter?”

“I still don’t see why it matters.” Aziraphale says softly, but there’s a little glimmer in his eyes, something caught between suspicion and a sort of hope, like he  _ wants  _ Crowley to ask, like he  _ wants _ to talk poetry and Catullus and all these little frivolous things with Crowley. 

It causes a queasy feeling in his stomach, perhaps the malbec wasn’t as good as he had thought. He drinks anyway when his glass refills.

“We should do dinner sometime,” he says absently, watching Aziraphale’s fingers tap against the desk. “There’s a nice little place in Mayfair I’ve been meaning to—“

“Catullus was a romantic,” Aziraphale says, considering his glass. “His more, ah, vulgar poems notwithstanding, his body of work is quite beautiful. 51 draws inspiration from Sappho’s work, the  _ sapphic meter _ , that fragmented sort of style like penning idle thoughts.”

There it is. He’s won this round, stifles a grin behind his wineglass, but what he’s won — well, he certainly hasn’t come here to talk poetry, he doesn’t think he’s ever  _ wanted  _ to discuss poetry, ever, with anyone. But Aziraphale is lit up as he speaks, eyes bright and wine forgotten, hands moving like little birds as he gets more and more into his speech. Crowley isn’t paying attention to what he’s saying, but rather how he’s saying it, that same sort of animated joy as when some hapless customer asks him the history of one of those dusty tomes he has on display and ends up walking away dazed and a bit of a historian on it. 

He perks up when Aziraphale mentions blasphemy, follows it with a lesson in Latin as though they  _ both _ weren’t there. “Doesn’t strike me as the sort to care

much about whether or not he’s been blasphemous, considering.”

Aziraphale slows for just a moment. “Of course he did.” He scoffs, then continues. “Catullus 51 is, of course, a fragment of a fragment, a translation of Sappho from her Greek to his Latin and then embellished upon. But the sentiment is still there.” He takes a steadying drink of wine and turns to look at Crowley. “When I look at you, even for a short time, I am no longer able to speak.”

“Oh, angel.” Crowley drawls, “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“It’s the poem, you insufferable serpent.”

“The things you say.” Crowley sighs, bats his eyelashes where his glasses have slipped down his nose just a bit. “You’re as much a romantic as Catullus himself.”

“This is  _ exactly _ what I was talking about.” Aziraphale snaps, and Crowley thinks perhaps it might have been too far. “Needling, always needling with your jokes and your sarcasm. Here I am, more the fool for thinking you might have actually humored me with some interest in something I enjoy.” And that was too far.

“Now hold on.” Crowley holds up a finger, demanding a moment to throw back the rest of his drink. “Who went with you to Whitman? And Shakespeare, not even the funny ones but whatever little production he put on that had you practically vibrating with excitement.”

“Well, I—“

“Milton too, Paradise Lost and your love-hate relationship with it, who sat and listened to you drunkenly rattle on and on for days?”

“You’ve made your point.”

“Have I?” But Crowley shifts uncomfortably, trying to quietly rein in his outburst, to collect the little bits of something he’s scattered all about the office,  _ don’t mind the mess, don’t read anything into it, won’t happen again. _

Aziraphale is clever, for all the times that Crowley has marveled at how daft he could seem to be, he’s a clever one. His eyes track the mess for all Crowley’s harried attempt to put it back in the box and all the anger and self-righteousness melts away into something that makes Crowley squirm even more. 

“Eliot,” Aziraphale says slowly, “that little cafe down the road, when was it, ‘93 or ‘94? It was an open mic night, and you wanted to leave, but that lad read The Wasteland and I asked you to stay and listen with me. If I recall, you enjoyed yourself.”

“Angel, I probably fell asleep.”

“ _ These fragments I have shored against my ruins, _ ” He says, recalling it, and of course he does. Crowley thinks he probably has all of them memorized front to back and back to front. “You stayed, even though you didn’t want to.”

Crowley clears his throat. “Yeah, we were talking about Catullus.” Holds out his glass. “I’m not drunk enough for Eliot.”

Aziraphale takes his glass gently, and there’s that wide-eyed wonder that takes him back to the bandstand under grey skies when the end of the world was only hours away. 

_ We can run off together. _

_ Together? _

“I think this malbec is turning to vinegar.” 

Aziraphale gives the bottle a cautious sniff. “Seems fine to me.”

“Might as well polish it off anyways, just in case. So, 85, Ōdi et amō, I love and I hate, you can spare me the Latin lesson, angel, I know it too after all.”

“Yes, well, I get a little carried away.”

“Understatement, but I’ll allow it. Tell me about this one.”

Aziraphale hesitates, and he’s not looking at him now. The desk, the walls, the floor, the wine bottles, back to the desk. There’s color high on his cheeks now and Aziraphale simply shrugs. “I just like it, I suppose.”

“You don’t  _ like _ things, you either love them or hate them with equals sorts of,” gestures vaguely with glass and kicks idly with his feet, “with whatever. Emotion. Why that one?”

“Why I do this, perhaps you ask? I do not know, but I feel it and it tortured me.”

Crowley snaps his fingers, boots coming down hard on the floor. “See! That, exactly that! You don’t like things, you love them. And when you love them you  _ love _ them, I mean really,” he takes another drink, “really love them.”

“It’s the poem, Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice is just a touch above a whisper.

“Oh.” Crowley says, deflating a bit. “Right. Catullus, romantic.” 

“More wine?”

He feels like he’s missed a few scattered pieces somewhere, left them out of the box in his haste. “Please.”

“I’m an angel, you know.” Aziraphale says stiffly, “A being of love.”

“Yeah.” Crowley murmurs,  _ not what I meant, but never mind all that. _ There are wine-soaked gears turning sluggishly in his head, creaking from disuse, and he thinks he should put a stop to that right now before it gets out of hand. 

Aziraphale is looking at him now, looking at him in a way Crowley’s seen before — and he tries not to think about the fact that he knows so many, perhaps all, of Aziraphale’s little looks. 

_ You go too fast for me, Crowley. _

His mouth feels dry, like he’s sobering up, and then the fresh bottle is in his hand. He takes a long, long drink. 

_ I don’t even like you. _

_ You do. _

“Please,” Aziraphale says with another roll of his eyes, “Help yourself.”

_ You don’t like things, you love them _ .

“Right!” Crowley says suddenly and Aziraphale startles. “Eliot then.” He jams an iron between the gears and waits for it all to stop. “Or, I don’t know, Frost. Nothing of his was ever any good, was it.”

“I never much cared for it.” Aziraphale chuckles wryly, and like that the moment is gone, whatever moment it was. They drink in silence for a bit, Aziraphale losing himself in leafing through invoices or whatever those piles of detritus on his desk actually where. 

It’s comfortable, this. This quiet existence, him lounging in his creaky chair in Aziraphale’s office, watching him idly pick at little bits of business. A quiet sort of intimacy that runs itching little fingertips over his skin and he thinks it shouldn’t be this easy, the two of them and whatever fragmented sort of Arrangement is still between them. 

He thinks he should bring it up, perhaps, the Arrangement. Or maybe he should leave it unsaid. Maybe he should try to tempt Aziraphale to dinner again, there was a place in Mayfair he was wanting to try, that had been the truth. He opens his mouth to ask him, tomorrow night perhaps, but the words get tangled somewhere behind his teeth. 

“By this, and this only, we have existed.”

Aziraphale startles again, turning to him. “You weren’t asleep then.”

He shrugs. “Suppose not. It’s all I can remember though, so don’t expect me to go quoting poetry with you.”

Aziraphale is quiet, and Crowley means to try for that dinner temptation again. “It’s fitting, isn’t it?”

“It’s — what?”

Aziraphale laughs, and  _ oh _ , Crowley pushes his glasses up against his face. It’s a soft thing, a sweet thing, tinged with a smile, that fondness again. “You and I having dinner in that little cafe, so casual like it was the most natural thing in the world for an angel and a demon to do. How many times before, and how many times after, did one of us say  _ dinner _ and the other reach for their coat. Walks in the park, the ducks, drinking here—“

“Getting absolutely smashed.”

“And doing it together. By this, we have existed.”

Crowley squirmed, an insect pinned, a snake trying to slither away. “But not  _ only  _ this.”

“Separately, no.” And that light is back in Aziraphale’s eyes. “But  _ we _ , there shouldn’t be a  _ we _ now, should there? And yet there is, in a way. The we that goes to dinner at the Ritz and feeds or torments the ducks at St. James, the we that sits in the back of my bookshop and talks poetry over malbecs.”

There’s a protest at the back of his throat, burning, a stone that refuses to come up or sink, smoldering, so Crowley drinks around it. Checks his watch, and the evening is still young. 

“Dinner?” He asks, his voice hoarse with it.

Aziraphale’s smile is radiant. “I’ll get my coat.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @moringottos if you'd like, I'll be crying about angels and demons


End file.
